


Hands Up

by FandomSprout69



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan
Genre: Cop/Detective, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Trauma, anger issues, buddy cop story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2018-07-18 13:17:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7316752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FandomSprout69/pseuds/FandomSprout69
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren Jeager had dreamed of becoming a police officer since he was young. Ever since his hero came to his rescue all those years ago and saved him from a life of pain and suffering. Now he finally has the opportunity to live out his dream job.<br/>Levi hadn't ever imagined himself in this position. He was from the slums and didn't think he'd live to see the day he would be able to sleep on a clean, comfy bed in a heated, four-walled home. But now he feels his luck is beginning to run out on him. Looking after some new rookie, especially some doe-eyed brat, was not on his to-do list.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sirens

The sirens were blaring into the shivering four-year-old's young ears. Tears still poured from his duo colored eyes. A black eye still fresh on his slightly tanned skin as he brought the ice bag back to its comforting place, hissing as the cold temperature began its process all over again. Eren had stopped sobbing over 10 minutes ago, but he still sniffled every now and then. The events of the night still fresh in his mind, his conscience wouldn't stop the flow of tears from dripping past his abnormal eyes. It wasn't until the shiver ran through his small, bruised body that he felt the presence of someone in front of him. His form shook with the uneasy anticipation of who it was. Eren dared not to look up to meet the eyes of said person. So he kept his gaze towards the dried dirt splatters on his shoes.  
The officer pulled off his hat, making his way over to the young boy that sat in the doorway of his vehicle. A sigh left his slightly chapped lips when he saw the tears still running down the kids face. With a calloused hand running through his blonde locks he put on a small smile when he got near the boy. The smile quickly faded when he noticed the red splatters on his shoes and the shivering of his tiny body. Not wanting to startle him anymore at the officer squatted down to his eye level. The kid said nothing. The lump in his throat threatened to break whenever he tried. The officer returned the smile to his features before he began to speak in a soft tone.   
"Hello Eren, how's your eye?"   
Eren could only look at him, and the sight broke his heart. He's had cases with bruised and battered children before, not that he's enjoyed any of the ones before this one. But the raw emotion that Eren held in his eyes that showed a mixture of fear and betrayal.... he could only feel his chest tighten at the sight. Needless to say, Erwin was sure to make it his duty to help him as much as he could.   
“We’re getting ready to head out. You’re going to ride with me back to the station, ok?”  
A jolt of realization hit the boy like a ton of bricks. His eyes widened and threatened to shed more tears as he looked to the officer, gripping even tighter onto his emergency blanket that he kept held tightly around his small form. “W-what about m-mommy?” His voice came out soft and strained when he asked about his mother. It took everything in Erwin to not glance over to the ambulance as it raced away. “Don’t worry. You’ll be able to see your mother, later on, tonight. Right now we have to get you down to the station.”   
A nod let him know that Eren understood. 

The ride to the station was silent besides the blaring zooms of passing cars and siren that echoed for them to pull over. Erwin would occasionally glance back to the boy, who was silent and stared at nothing but his dirtied shoes the whole ride, through his rearview mirror. Once they got to the station Erwin held the boy’s hand as he led him to his office. There his partner, Kenny Ackerman, was waiting for him. He didn’t look amused when he spotted the sniffling child beside his partner. “So is this the brat they called in?” Erwin was in no mood to deal with Kenny’s attitude at the moment, ignoring his comment as he led Eren to the couch to the side of his office. Again crouching down to his eye level before he spoke. "I have to leave for a few minutes, but this is officer Ackerman. He'll keep you company." Eren eyed the tall man that sat on what was Erwin’s' desk. Kenny held the boy under his strong gaze that made him uncomfortable in his skin.   
"Wait here till I come back. My partner here will watch over you while I go find something for you to drink." Before Eren could protest, Erwin left the two in the room with an eerie silence. The small boy kept his gaze anywhere but to the man sitting before him.   
“What’s your name kid?”   
Nothing.   
“What’s with the silence are ya mute or something?”  
Eren still refused to look at the man, only gripping onto his blanket and messing with its stitching.   
“Tch, you’d better start talking soon brat. You’re going to have to be questioned about what happened. Your mother isn’t here to be your translator.”   
Eren flinched at his words. He was right. His mother wasn’t here. She wasn’t there to make him feel better like she usually did when things went wrong for him. But tonight had gone to complete hell. The images flashed through his mind. Screaming rang in his ears as he could literally smell the stench of iron in the room. Broken glass littered the floor from picture frames that hung on the walls of his home. His mother’s face still as a statue. His form began to shake violently, tears overflowed in his eyes and dripped down his cheeks when he began to sob.   
“Where’s mommy?! I wanna be with mommy!”  
Kenny seemed unamused at the child’s whining. It was quick to get on his nerves whenever he saw someone cry. “Tch, shut that shit up and be a man. Your mother is gone and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”   
“Y-you’re lying! M-mommy wouldn’t…l-leave m-me!!” Eren stuttered through his words. Voice cracking as he exclaimed to the older man.   
“Why are you being so damn stubborn? She’s dead. She isn’t coming back for you.”  
His words pierced Eren like a thin needle. His sobs grew and disrupted his breathing. He began to hyperventilate, balling up into the corner of the couch like it was some sort of anchor for his crashing wall of reality.  
“Stop it…you’re lying…you’re a liar…” His voice became small and timid again.   
“Don’t believe me if you want, but you can’t deny the truth.”  
“Liar! Liar, liar, liar!”   
He repeated this word over and over to Kenny. Yelling at the top of his lungs caused the two not to hear the knocks on the closed office door. It was swung open by a teen with pale skin, short black hair and glaring steel daggers at his uncle. The teen quickly made his way over to the screaming child and cradled him in his arms. “Hey. Stop crying, it’s ok.”   
Eren’s sobs died down after a few minutes of the raven haired boy petting his hair and whispering calming words into his head. The young child tightly held onto his soother and cried softly into his chest.   
“What the hell is wrong with you? You don’t say crap like that to a kid.” The teen directed his voice to his uncle, spatting the question at him through a venomous tone.   
Kenny’s dull face didn’t change. “I was only telling the kid the truth. It ain’t my fault he couldn’t take it.”  
“Just get out already. You’ve done enough.” The raven sent glares at the man as he left, slamming the door on his way out. The loud sound made Eren jump and left the teen to soothe him again. “Kid it’s ok. Don’t worry about him, he’s just an ass.” He spoke softly, almost whispering as he pulled away a bit to look into Eren’s eyes. His narrowed eyes widened a bit in surprise at their colors. An ocean like green and fiery amber peered back at him through knitted, somber eyes. He internally shook his head and got his mind back to the boy before him. “Better?”  
Receiving a nod, the teen wiped away the remaining tears on Eren’s cheeks. “What’s your name brat?” His tone was calm and much more inviting than Kenny’s. The young boy took a moment to answer, still recovering from his episode. “….E-Eren…”   
The teen gave a small smile to which Eren gave one back. “Nice to meet you Eren, I’m Levi.”


	2. Wake Up Call

Eren blinked away the tears that threatened to fall. Damn his over-sensitive pupils. Damn his recent eye doctor appointment. Damn these contacts. Who in their right mind would think of frameless glasses that you have to put directly on the eye itself?   
The doctor said he'd get used to putting them in and taking them out eventually, but he couldn't really complain. He's the one who decided to get them. He's the one who begged his father to make him an appointment. After weeks of persistent asking and shedding of a gallon of tears, Erwin finally agreed to his adoptive son's request. 

It'd had been 7 years since the blonde cop had decided to take the orphan under his care. After being taken to the station by him, Eren was always wanting to be by his side. That night he had nowhere to go, Erwin was the one who volunteered his home to him. At least until he found a suitable foster home for the child. He'd feed him, even if the boy had no real appetite, set up the guest room down the hall from him, provided a bath, and gave him some pajamas to wear -one of his older shirts that had shrunken in the wash- and tucked him in.  
Erwin had grown accustomed to this new daily routine. Even the nights he'd be awakened by the screams of night terrors, where he'd race to his spare guest room to find a curled up child shivering in the thick sheet against the wall of his bed. No hesitation passed through the blonde as he hurried to Eren's side. Gently bringing the child closer, Erwin felt pained as tears wet the front of his shirt. The boy clenched onto the fabric of his clothing still wailing over the images he had endured. 

Eren cursed as he reached for his second lens, successfully knocking over bottles he had strewn about his countertop. Groaning in frustration he bent over to pick up the mess, sloppily rearranging the contents of the counter before cleaning his hands and resuming placing his second contact in. Once he was done he sighed and looked at himself in the mirror. His heart skipped at the sight before him. A single pair of green eyes peered back at him. He released another breath. Finally, he looked normal. His eyes were the cause of years of teasing from other kids. They called him a freak, a mistake with eyes only monsters you heard of in storybooks bore. It was ridiculous the analogies those kids would come up with. But the teasing only grew more persistent as the boy got older. Eren would come back to the house he had grown to know as home and cry into his father's chest, being told that he shouldn't listen to what people say. 

"Eren, you're eyes are special. Don't let anyone tell you different."   
Soft hiccups broke apart Eren's words.   
"B-but they...they said I looked like a freak…”   
Erwin continued to rub circles on the child’s back as he replied, “Eren. Your eyes are what make you, you. Even if others don’t see the beauty in them, I do. And you should too.” 

‘Beauty...yeah right.’ The brunette rolled his eyes at the old memory. Walking out of the bathroom to make his way downstairs. The fading scent of leftover breakfast filled his nostrils. Erwin had cooked some eggs, sausage links and a half full brewed pot of coffee. A small smile crept onto his features, his dad had always managed to wake up before him, get ready for work, make breakfast and leave to start his early shift. Always before his alarm went off three hours later. Eren had surprisingly grown independent enough to care for himself whenever his adoptive father wasn’t around.   
It didn’t take long for the young boy to take to Erwin as a protective figure. He’d cling to his side whenever they had to venture outside his home. The hand of the tiny four-year-old gripped tightly to the material of Erwin’s pant leg or shirt as the two walked about. Scared of the strange faces he knew nothing about, worried they would take him away from his caretaker the second his hold lessened. 

The only slightly muffled sound of a car horn rung through the brunette’s ears. Pulling him out of his thoughts of his own patheticness. Eren took in the time from the microwave clock before cursing aloud to himself. 

He was late.   
And his ride was most likely going to have his ass for it. 

It wasn’t a moment later when he grabbed two sausage links with some napkins before sprinting towards his backpack that lay neatly by the entrance and out of the front door. There was an unmarked police car waiting for him on the curb. Engine running, tinted windows, -most likely also bulletproof Eren thought to himself- with an even more than likely pissed off driver. He had just barely gotten the door open when the gruff voice broke through the chill of the fall weather. 

“Your ass had better hurry and close the door before you even think about getting in.” 

...Huh? 

A spark of realization hit the young boy. With quick movements, he tossed his school bag into the space in front of his seat before leaving the car door ajar to race back to close and lock his front door. An annoyed raven shook his head at the boy’s antics. You would think after the few years of this routine he would quite leaving his home open to intruders three days out the week.   
Eren returned just in time for the wind to pick up and push him to get into the warmth of the heated vehicle quicker. A sigh of content at the new found comfort left his shivering lips once he was settled into the car. 

Levi didn’t try to stop himself from smirking. This kid was something else. He spoke with vague amusement that Eren had grown accustomed to, “Thank god, you’re light on your feet...for an airhead.” An unmistakably immature tongue was seen out the corner of his eye. Eren’s lower lip protruded in a half glare-half pout that was customary for most of their interactions, especially whenever Levi was somehow involved. With a huff, his features turned smugger with what he thought was the perfect retort. 

“At least I’m tall enough to see over the steering wheel without a booster seat.” 

Eren was proud of his witty comeback and turned his focus to securing his seatbelt.  
Until he felt the jerk of the car propel him forward enough to knock his head against the dashboard. His hands bolted up to sooth the now red mark that would most definitely bruise. Glare meeting amused look as the engine purred smoothly. 

“Oops. Thought I put in park.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated! Thanks for reading!


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